So far this year, our social media
feeds have been peppered with calls to be vegan for the month of Veganuary,
use less
plastic, produce less
waste, and make countless other lifestyle changes to create a better world.
A plastic bag takes 1,000 years to degrade in landfill declares one video on my facebook
feed, so we should use
a fabric bag instead.

However, many
activists and woke
folks are suspicious of calls to action that focus on individual choices.
They warn
that consumerist activism, personal environmentalism and lifestyle politics are
distractions from genuine social justice work. Instead, they tell
us to focus on structural change. ‘Lifestylist’ solutions are a waste of time because they fail to address the structural causes of social problems; what’s also problematic is that
they’re not accessible to everyone since they require investments of our own time and money.

In some ways these critics are right, but in others they’re wrong. The criticism that our own personal
behaviours or consumption patterns are irrelevant to broader social structures
is mistaken.

There are many reasons to be wary
of lifestylism. The problem of capitalist co-optation of social justice
movements is wide-spread. For example, what was originally a radical critique of global neocolonial trading
systems in the early 1990s has now become commodified as a
fairtrade
certification logo that large corporations can put on their products even if they are subject to allegations of abusing human rights—though it’s
worth noting that there
are other fair trade certifications that are a lot more radical than the
Fairtrade Foundation’s famous swirly waving person symbol, like the World Fair Trade Organisation
which doesn’t allow corporations to use its logo.

Similarly, more radical takes on veganism and related movements—which started out as an ecological critique of capitalist profit-seeking and whitesupremacy—have been
overtaken by the sale of vegan salad boxes in
high street fast food chains. Lefties are right to reject these co-optations of what were originally
radical movements. Simply buying a product that’s branded as ‘organic,’ ‘fairtrade’ or vegan because it makes you feel
more ‘ethical’ is not only superficial; in many cases it also helps to fund the same high street corporations that are responsible
for the environmental damage and human exploitation that we’re trying to stop.

Having said all that, it’s important to recognise that not all forms of lifestylist responses to social problems lack a
structural critique. In fact there are radical forms of lifestylism that are firmly
based on a critical analysis of social structures and
how they can change.

A basic textbook definition is that social structure refers to “any recurring pattern of social
behaviour or, more specifically, to the ordered interrelationships between the
different elements of a social system or society”
(that’s from the Oxford
Dictionary of Sociology). Many
radical people jump to the conclusion that structures live in centralised and
formal institutions, so acting for structural change is usually seen as working towards changing
laws, regulations or corporate policies.

For example, rather than asking
every individual member of the public to stop using plastic bags, I’ve heard
people argue that a structural approach would have to demand that the government legislates against their use, or ask corporations to stop using
and selling them. Another area where this kind of criticism is common is
antiracist and feminist work, especially the kind that focuses on unlearning
internalised racism and sexism and intercepting the ways in which they affect
our personal behaviour.

Focusing on the individual, these critics argue, is a distraction
from the real, structural
problems that are located in the law or in discriminatory corporate practices. But
what these critics fail to realise is that structures are also informal,
cultural and interpersonal, and they are constructed everywhere.

While it’s absolutely true that we
need radical legal and policy changes, state institutions and the law are not the only places that
are structural. As cultural marxists and anarchists have been pointing out for a very long time, understanding social structures as
exclusively centralised and formal only serves to reinforce the power of the
state and of political
elites. If we denounce lifestyle activism and instead focus all of our
attention on getting corporations and the state to change formal laws and procedures over
our heads, then we reduce the majority of the population to passive service
users, mere recipients
of government and corporate guidance.

To continue the example of plastic bags, of course
governments write laws
that regulate what kind of plastic products we
can and cannot consume, but our relationship to plastic and waste goes way beyond the law. We grow up with certain
understandings of what freshness or cleanliness mean, with ideas of how much stuff we have the right to
consume, and with theories around choice and
individualism.

These attitudes—like racist and sexist attitudes—are things that governments couldn’t legislate away even if they wanted to, and since the state in its current form
was built with the primary aim of protecting capitalist and
colonial interests, it will
never actually want
to. Therefore we
are going to need formal and informal
structural changes which include, but aren’t limited to, educating the general public about how long it takes plastic bags to degrade, and what alternatives exist. Structural
change requires public participation; it isn’t something that some breakaway vanguard elite
activist group can sort out for the rest of us.

As for asking corporations to
implement policies that make the world a better place, I cannot think of a more watered down political
project. The existence of for-profit corporations is premised on the systemic
exploitation of workers and the environment. Any change they can offer will by
definition be tokenistic.

If we want systemic change we
should abandon corporations, withdraw our support for the mainstream capitalist economy, and build alternatives by setting up, working for and buying from structurally different
institutions: non-profit and democratically run workers’ co-operatives, for
example, community interest companies and
collectives. Only then can we move from reformism to radical change.

Besides,
unlike waving placards at government buildings from behind a row of police
officers in Whitehall, putting your own
resources into alternative economies has the direct and tangible effect of
taking Pounds, Dollars and hours of labour away from
capitalists and putting them somewhere better.

Not everyone
has the means to buy, work or live differently, a criticism that is often made about lifestylist approaches. Many people are too poor, busy or unwell, and that’s something everyone who puts out calls to action
needs to remember. It is suspicious, though, that this criticism is only ever
made of social movements that call for lifestylist actions like going vegan or
avoiding plastic bags or joining a co-op.

Actions that target the government
such as protests or direct actions aren’t accessible to everyone either: they also take time, money, specific physical
and mental dispositions, patience and know-how. Yet most of us manage not to moralise
over them or to condemn those who aren’t able to join in. It’s
certainly problematic that it takes
resources to change systems, but this is not something that’s particular to
lifestylism. If we don’t have love and care for those comrades who are less able to contribute
right now, or ever, then our movements are bullshit. This goes for all activist approaches, whatever their target.

Let us do what we can to improve
the state and the mainstream economy for the short term, and build better, democratic, and more sustainable structures for
the future. Targeting
states and corporations is more reformist than radical lifestylism, but it
isn’t more structural. Structures are everywhere, including in our own lives
and personal relationships. It’s time we came to terms with that reality.

About the author

Sofa Gradin teaches Politics at Kings College London and is an organiser with IOPS London (the International
Organisation for a Participatory Society), which works for prefigurative
politics against racism, capitalism and patriarchy. Follow them on twitter @sofagradin.

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